Jim Commentucci / The Post-Standard Johnny Gray is among the volunteers from Barnwell, S.C. helping to bebuild the Bellewood Baptist Church Saturday in North Syracuse.

A little less than a year ago, Pastor Matt Hallenbeck stood on the lawn of the burned-out Bellewood Baptist Church in North Syracuse and tried to comfort his congregation by telling them the building was only temporary.

“What God does in us is eternal,” he said, just hours after a car crashed into the church, setting it on fire. No one was seriously hurt. But the building, which had been home to the church for 40 years, had to be leveled. The small congregation — about 75 people — would need help to rebuild.

And they have received offers from places they’d never think to ask — from neighbors around the corner to a plumber in Louisiana.

The rebuilding began Friday with a group of 90 volunteers from the First Baptist Church in Barnwell, S.C. The group helps build a church somewhere in the United States every year. Most often, the churches are new. This is the first that the group has rebuilt following a fire, said Coley Creech, a general contractor who heads up the volunteer church-building mission.

Creech said he and his helpers will have the building entirely framed and most of the electrical work finished by the end of the week.

The new church will be about 7,000 square feet when it’s done, which is about twice as big as the old building. Steve Sallis, a member of the Bellewood Baptist Church who is heading up the rebuilding effort, said the new church will cost about $800,000. But the congregation hopes to pay for most of it through insurance money and donations of labor, materials and money. Sallis said the church needs to raise about $100,000 to pay for the work.

He said the community support has been overwhelming. The Northside Baptist Church is letting the dozens of South Carolina builders sleep in its building. The North Area YMCA has given them free passes for the week so they can shower. There has been donated coffee, water, paper plates and meals. The Porta-John company even offered the job-site toilets at a cut-rate discount, Sallis said.

But the thing that struck him as truly miraculous: They were able to get a building permit from the village of North Syracuse in about a week. “That’s a God thing,” Sallis said.

Now, he said, they need a little more divine intervention with red tape so they can get their plumbing for free from a plumber licensed in Louisiana who wants to help.

To help
Visit www.bellewoodchurch.com to learn more about the project to rebuild Bellewood Baptist Church and how to help.

Contact Marnie Eisenstadt can be reached at meisenstadt@syracuse.com or 470-2246.